KDE And Gnome Cooperate On Interface Guidelines 317
An anonymous reader submits "Competing infrastructures may foster improvement in each desktop, but the Gnome and KDE hackers still know how to work together when needed. The Free *nix desktop has been improving quickly. Red Hat's unified desktop was controversial, but obviously the right decision for regular users. Now that KDE and Gnome have decided to combine their Human Interface Guides, it can be done right--by the developers themselves. Note: they also want to involve 'people working on other non-KDE non-GNOME HIGs.'" Update: 02/03 20:19 GMT by T : Apparently not everyone's browser can read http://freedesktop.org, so the initial link up there now sports a "www" as well. And it's .org -- sorry.
In a related story... (Score:3, Funny)
Presidents Bush, Chirac, and Hussein were found making out in a hot tub.
We're losing sight of the important issue. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We're losing sight of the important issue. (Score:5, Funny)
What is it about that acronym that sounds familiar?
Re:We're losing sight of the important issue. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:We're losing sight of the important issue. (Score:2, Insightful)
KDE/GNOME
So then all the people in favor of calling Linux GNU/LINUX can say they are running the KDE/GNOME window enviroment on the GNU/Linux operating system. Lets all try to make the name structure as akward and complicated as possible to deter normal people from trying OSS let alone pronouncing it.
Well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
This is exactly the opposite direction from what is being done, and for good reason. Right now, the focus is not on re-inventing everything, but figuring out where the common elements of GNOME and KDE's HIG's can be merged, and also where they are unique. Then an effort to merge those last chunks can procede by actually changing the two where appropriate.
Also, you may not realize just what an HIG is. It actually has very little to do with what you *see* so much as how you see it. Check out the GNOME HIG [gnome.org] for more details. This specifies things like what buttons you should put on an alert dialog; when you should use modal vs non-modal windows; default keyboard shortcuts and menu names; etc.
If all you want is a more BeOS, MacOS, etc. looking desktop, or even a totally unique look, you can do that within the constraints of the HIG of either GNOME or KDE.
From the announcement:
They are missing the ~experts~ on UI design (Score:3, Funny)
Re:They are missing the ~experts~ on UI design (Score:2)
http://www.microsoftlinux.com/
And the guy's serious. Makes a good point too.
uniformity is good (Score:2, Insightful)
The situation is quite a bit better if you settle on KDE or GNOME. Each one has user interface guidelines. The problem is still pretty acute, though, since neither one ships only (or even mainly) with programs that conform to their respective user interface guidlines! And of course most third party applications conform to the guidelines in the same way that Krap and Garbage conform to the formal dress guidelines for a wedding.
It is very encouraging that KDE and GNOME are working to standaradize their guidelines throughout Linux. It would be a lot better for the two if Applications from one didn't look like they fit into the other, but at least familiar buttons, dialogs and shortcut keys would operate in the same manner. This is almost as encouraging as it was discouraging when Apple decided to throw away their excellent interface guidelines and develop new and bad ones for OS X.
NOOOOO!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:5, Funny)
BSD is dying.
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Is this supposed to be a flame war, or what?
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:2)
vi and Emacs are products of the era in which they were built, and both were considered excellent UIs for the day. Given today's advances in UI design, I find it interesting that those two are still the best ways to edit text. There *should* be better, but there simply isn't. There are some basic reasons for this that are interesting and fly in the face of a lot of UI design:
[note: I'm talking about Emacs as a text-editor, which is a fair slice of its functionality to discuss, though certainly not all of it]
Both editors were designed in an era when the mouse wasn't an option. This means that even given recent modifications to add mouse support in vim and Lucid Emacs (GNU Emacs had primative mouse support first, but Lucid modernized it, and much of their work was merged back into GNU Emacs, though not all, hence Lucid's transition to the even-today-maintained XEmacs) in the last 10 or so years, they still remain useful when your fingers never leave the keyboard.
The other thing that both of these do that puts them head-and-shoulders above many related tools is interaction with external programs. In vi or Emacs, I can send a portion of a document through any external program I want and read back the result into the original document. Here's an example in vi: This sorts the lines from the current position to the bottom of the file based on the numeric value of the third column. To add this feature into the editor would be fine (Emacs can do this actually), but if an external tool already knows how to do it, why not take advantage of that fact?
Re:NOOOOO!!! (Score:3, Funny)
It's an operating system with a mediocre text editor and insane interface. It makes Windows XP look like BeOS.
Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea of human interface guidelines is restrictive from the start. Nobody know's better than the coder who codes and application how it should work. Having guidelines written beforehand that should say how it works doesn't make complete sense.
Look at apple and their rejection of tabbed browsing. Thats something that has adapted from systems that work well, yet they're saying "no not on our turf".
Then turn around and the apple web site is all tabbed anyway. Websites have better interfaces as they are made to fit each purpose.
Each application needs freedom. Having them all with exactly the same system is like a monoculture.
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:2)
Seconds saved for one task, for hundreds of technicians, for thousands of hours worked equates to big money.
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience, the coder is the last person
who should be designing the user interface for just
about anything beyond command line tools.
Let the coder design the interface between the
code and the UI, but let someone with more
relevent training and experience design the UI.
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:2)
I would have to disagree. Much software (and especially free software, seem to have interfaces that leave something to be desired. The coder knows the program, and appreciates the project from a very functional point of view, but they tend to lose sight of the usability of the interface.
I'm not saying that coders aren't good at designing human interfaces, but from my experience it's often more beneficial for someone else altogether to design the HI, from the perspective of an "outsider."
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:2)
I am a developer, but I think that UI design should be handled by artists. When coders do all of it, you get things like twm and Win 3.1, not things like Enlightenment, Aqua, and Win XP.
Of course, some people like that kind of thing, I guess.
-WS
Mac OpenOffice very beta (Score:4, Informative)
Work is underway to give OpenOffice first a Quartz interface then a full Aqua interface. The current OpenOffice for the Mac depends on X11 and is clearly labeled as a "Developer's Pre-release".
OpenOffice on OS X only exists in it's current form so that the backend code (common to all ports - filters and so forth) can be debugged insofar as the non-GUI parts don't like Darwin. Once the core is solid and clean on Darwin then it will get an interface that is more pleasing. If they had to make a native interface for it before doing anything else, it would take much longer for a solid OS X port. The roadmap is here [openoffice.org].
You're larger point may be valid but the OSX port of OpenOffice (as it currently stands) is not a valid example.
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah right, so we should just let everyone make their own decisions on what order menus go in? Or perhaps you'd like to go back to early GUIs (kinda) like Windows 3.1 in which every applications file dialog was different.
Sorry, most programmers don't have a hot damn clue when it comes to users. We're too far removed from the average luser's problems.
All it took for me to have to 'help' lots of users in some environments was for some application to have something 'relocated' because the programmer knew best.
Users don't want clever, they want consistent, move one item in a menu because you 'know better' and you render your application unusable to the vast majority of users.
Guidelines should be negotiable, but Apple who's really always had a leg up on the competition has consistency from what little experience I have with them above all else. At least in the basic things like where things are in the interface.
Once the platform has established an idiom, if we're too dumb to figure it out as programmers or think we know better, we need to be slapped down.
Yes, I'd agree about _some_ websites. However, I've seen enough that cause me trouble to say that that freedom is a bad thing.
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Spend some time training end users how to use basic tasks such as GUI stuff (copying files, moving windows) then try office apps (word processors, spreadsheets) and you will be amazed. Alternatively, take a good course on user interface design [umbc.edu], or Medical Informatics [umbc.edu]. The average user cannot recognize something as a check box, unless it the same as the ones they know. Even bits of shading and color can make them unable to recognize the screen as anything other than colors. It just "looks to complicated" and they turn off their brains.
Apple realized this long ago. MS hasn't (hence, Windows XP was born). There are a great many articles available at the ACM [acm.org] Digital Library [acm.org] regarding user interface design and experiments. There are certain user interface rules are that pretty much accepted as fact, since they have so much research behind them. Apple is very consistent at following them, which is why people think Apples aer easy to use, even though most techies look at them as really being the same. It's the subtleties that we don't see. A quick list from my memory:
- Dynamic menus are always slower than static menus
(You know the rearranging menus in Office 2000/Windows 2000?)
- Vertical scrolling is easier than horizontal scrolling
- Multimodal interfaces are faster if they are properly paired
(Ex: Keyboard=okay, Mouse+Keyboard = excellent, Joystick+Keyboard=bad)
- Consistency is more important than feature set
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:3, Insightful)
Consistency in the UI makes ALL programs easier to use. rather than the current smorgasbord of the linux desktop, where inevitably, you spend the first hour of using a new program figuring out how the damn thing works.
In contrast, on the mac, I KNOW that certain items are always going to be in the same place. muscle memory tells me how to save a file etc. Linux's command line functions have a similar consistency. How many times have you typed 'somecommand --help' without reading a man page to discover that it would work. How would you like a program that used '--options' instead. I'd be irritated.These little things add up over the course of a work day.
'Best Fit' has to be applied to the user experience as a whole, not just any one single application.
cheers!
Re:Whatever happened to "best fit" (Score:3, Informative)
If those applications had followed the UI guidelines for the platforms they run on, they could still have had all of the features, all of the great flexibility, but they didn't need to have pseudo-round volume sliders, non-standard title-bars that do application-local window management, context-sensitive menus that don't have commonly-performed operations, out-of-the-box unique font selection, out-of-the-box unique color selection, etc, etc.
That kind of awful behavior is what makes a desktop unusable (and certainly if more apps go the "branded UI" route, dekstops will become totally unusable).
Who's with me... (Score:5, Funny)
it's a bummer that sarcasm is so hard to write via text
Re:Who's with me... (Score:2)
To be honest, getting this comment posting program to display the tags was actually kind of a pain.
Re:Who's with me... (Score:2)
mistaken (Score:4, Informative)
It is a sign; the free desktop guidelines were sent to us to aid in our defense.
Re:mistaken (Score:5, Informative)
Read the announcement on the mailing list archives.
may i suggest a starting point.... (Score:2, Informative)
finally ego's are starting to subside and we are working together. i have dreamt about this for years, a common human interface guide, that will work consistently. i do not need 100 differnt ways to do something.. nor do i need 100 different widget sets. i just want something that works the same way every time
Re:may i suggest a starting point.... (Score:2)
You may also get common user interface standards, but that has little or nor bearing on the above.
Also, pointing to Apple as an example good HIG is probably not the moral high-ground it once was, given recent software from that company (e.g. the latest Quicktime) pointedly ignores such things....
Re:may i suggest a starting point.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree, you don't need 100 different ways to do anything, you only need MY WAY!!!!
Reading too much into it? (Score:2, Insightful)
At least it will be possible to quickly identify the differences between the guidelines now, but not as much as I hoped for.
The worst possible people to do the UI... (Score:5, Insightful)
are the developers.
They think and know too much about *how* the system is *implemented* rather than how it will be *used* - which is a very different thing. They tend to be function oriented rather than task oriented.
On the plus side, having UI design guidelines is a good start and at least it gives something that can serve as a basis for discussion.
Not quite what it sounds. (Score:5, Informative)
The goal seems to be to make it easier for developers to access the different HIGs for the two desktops, not to create a single HIG for both desktops.
TheFrood
Re:Not quite what it sounds. (Score:3, Informative)
between the documents and perhaps create common chapters or sections on basic
guidelines and lessons that are desktop and toolkit-independent
The end goal of all of this is to create a single HIG for both desktops.
None too soon! (Score:4, Funny)
I love how everything in OS X seems to be well thought out; XP on the other hand, may have been assembled after the MS Christmas party, you know the one where Ballmer dry humped Bill's leg and everyone laughed, got fired, and re-hired in the same night.
I hope that linux can get moving with the standardized (yet infinitely customizable) interface. Maybe throw in those spiffy vector icons (eye candy!), some way to never visit the CLI if I don't want to, and a way to make configuration eaiser.
But I digress. A standard desktop will only encourage linux. Those who want to run the u1tr4 l33t desktops can still do so, and the people who just want an easy alternative to windows will have one. Or buy a mac :)
Desktops.. (Score:5, Funny)
So for many, many months I was using my OpenBSD machine thinking "Man oh man this looks like Windows. It even has a Start menu." Everything worked exactly as a Windows machine except for pokey games and the slight lags I'd notice once in a while.
My dream was shattered when I realized I was just VNC'd to my Windows machine.
Bitstream Vera the default font? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bitstream Vera the default font? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a graphic designer who's done a lot of interface design, as well as being an avid follower of human-computer interface trends and issues.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how someone like myself would help contribute to an Open Source project? While I am not a programmer by any means, the interface is definitely somewhere that can use some help in all the Linux distros I've seen and used.
Also, being a Mac person, I don't really know which direction to turn in; i.e. does Gnome need help? Debian? etc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:3, Interesting)
You could also join the mailinglist of a distro, and see if the installer, or the config utilities need some suggestions. I'm not sure if the debian distro would be a good choice, most of their tools are not graphical, but of course they have an interface.
Maybe the best thing is to just join a mailinglist of a project with which you can feel attached. If you like Gnome, and have something with it, it will make it interesting for you. As a mac person, Gnome might be that for you, the Gnome2 interface is modelled more after the mac than the Kde interface.
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:5, Informative)
a) Start using KDE
b) Find an app whose UI you think needs work
c) Politely contact the app author, offering your help
d) Don't barge in saying "hey, fool, this is how it's done" ala Eugenia Loli-Queru from osnews.com
e) Try hacking a better UI through Qt designer (it's pretty easy, and if you are lucky, you won't even need to rebuild the app).
f) Volunteer to take bugreports regarding UI for that app
g) Don't propose changes that would involve huge refactoring and throwing away of code. If you do, noone will care, and you will be frustrated.
That is about it.
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a precious resource!
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how someone like myself would help contribute to an Open Source project? While I am not a programmer by any means, the interface is definitely somewhere that can use some help in all the Linux distros I've seen and used.
I'm an open-source author, and my experience says that some projects care about this kind of stuff and some don't. By and large I think you'll find that the software that is part of the major desktops (KDE and GNOME) is developed by people who are much more in tune with this kind of thing. They have a vision of a slick, easy-to-use, well-integrated desktop, and usability is important to them.
More independent apps can go either way: sometimes it will be a small group of developers and users who are happy with things the way they are and fairly resistant to usability improvements. Mplayer is a good example of this. They are most concerned with the raw power of the program, and don't care much that there is no GUI support worth mentioning, and they expect you to be compiling from source. If you ask questions they'll tell you "man mplayer, it's all in there." There's no point in approaching a project like this, they're just not concerned with UI or usability issues and your suggestions will fall on deaf ears.
Other times independent projects are concerned with usability, and the project I work on, Audacity [sf.net], is one of them. UI issues are frequently discussed, mockups created and refined. We are receptive to UI suggestions.
So my advice would be to find a few applications that interest you that you think would be receptive to suggestions. Come up with a few ideas for improving these applications, and approach the developer list with them. Maybe create mockups of your ideas and link to them from your email. Gauge the response to determine whether you think you would work well the the developers or not, and if so you're started!
Also, being a Mac person, I don't really know which direction to turn in; i.e. does Gnome need help? Debian? etc. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Hmm. Plain old non-developer users are most likely going to be using KDE and/or GNOME (and their associated applications), so Linux usability in general is most greatly increased when these applications become more usable. On the other hand, both of these projects already have a pretty good handle on usability, and have somewhat firm ideas about their plan for how they will achieve usability. So you would probably encounter more inertia approaching applications like this, and you would have to become more deeply involved to really be able to accomplish anything.
I'm just making this up, but probably the applications that could use the most help are KDE or GNOME applications that are farther from the core of these desktops. Don't look to Abiword, Galeon, Kword, or Konqueror. Look for lesser-known but promising applications that have a good technical basis (programmers who know what they are doing) but not much thought into the UI yet.
Another strategy is just to use Linux for a while and see what you are drawn to. If there's something that nags you about the interface to a program you use regularly, bring it up to the developers and propose a solution.
I hope you manage to find a project that can use you!
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
That was in no way a rant. I just wanted to prevent "thatguywhoiam" from becoming frustrated at trying to improve the usability of a project like mplayer. I don't think you can really dispute these facts:
I myself use mplayer because it is powerful. I am not anti-mplayer. But mplayer would not be a good project to approach with usability improvement ideas.
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Perhaps this is an Ask Slashdot... (Score:2)
I'd love to see the concept of good UI design kept in the forefront of the minds of the OSS community.
Just warning you ahead of time (Score:2)
In general, both GNOME and KDE developers usually do an excellent job of chasing away people with UI design abilities. There's this attitude among the developers that HCI is a far less important endeavor than, say, something technical like programming. And the developers will let you know it every step of the way. The developers also tend to have the attitude that principles of cognitive psychology (the things you need to exploit in an interface to make it very usable) are a load of bull or nothing more than just one person's opinion. It won't matter how many journal issues you might cite. You can't reason with people who think that Fitts' Law is a TV show about lawyers.
Also, if you're a mac person, it's really going to annoy the hell out of you that GNOME and KDE developers refuse to believe that microsoft is capable of making really bad UI design decisions. One of people in charge of this new-fangled GNOME/KDE truce told me that Microsoft UI design incompetance was "a myth". Guess he never saw multi-row tabs.
One thing you want to do is to look at the first year and a half of the "gnome-gui" [gnome.org] list (that was the main gnome usability list for awhile) versus the GNOME usability [gnome.org] mailing list of today. Notice how the first year or two of the old mailing list had people from a wide variety of UI design backgrounds who brought really good usability ideas to the table. Over the last several years, the GNOME usability movement has degenerated into a "hackers good ole boys club" consisting of a bunch of linux programmers who seem like they'd rather be spending their time in vi writing bash scripts.
Until there's a good direction to turn to, a distro or open source project that actually values the input of usability folks, you're probably best off staying where you are. The current batch of projects and distributions are committed to shooting themselves (and their end users) in the foot.
correct the correction (Score:4, Informative)
Please note the corrected URL points to www.freedesktop.org, while the old one was freedesktop.org, NOT freedesktop.com.
If we can't keep the org/net/com/new TLD of the day straight, how can we expect others who just want it to work to keep it straight?
freedesktop.org != freedesktop.com (Score:4, Funny)
Re:freedesktop.org != freedesktop.com (Score:2)
You're new around here, right?
Re:freedesktop.org != freedesktop.com (Score:2)
Error in correction (Score:3, Informative)
freedesktop.org [freedesktop.org] and www.freedesktop.org [freedesktop.org]
not freedesktop.com [freedesktop.com] and www.freedesktop.com [freedesktop.com]
which seem to be placeholders for a domain squatter.
Re:Error in correction (Score:2)
Hosted by the makers of blue curve (Score:4, Interesting)
Wrong link (Score:2)
Thanks Timothy! (Score:5, Funny)
Appreciate that. I'm stuck with this low market-share browser [mozilla.org] that couldn't handle the URL. Appreciate the bone.
This can only be good . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
It shows that KDE and Gnome can have healthy competition while at the same time, work for a common goal, unlike unhealthy competition where one tries to be incompatible in the hopes of gaining an advantage. It is too bad that some proprietary companies don't understand the long-term benefits of healthy competition verses unhealthy competition.
Subliminal??? (Score:2)
Please. (Score:2)
Timothy, that is a bad link (Score:3, Informative)
browser? (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently not everyone's browser can read http://freedesktop.com
Not only is freedesktop.com -NOT- the site in the article, but the browser has nothing to do with it.
$ ping freedesktop.org
ping: unknown host freedesktop.org
$ ping www.freedesktop.org
PING freedesktop.redhat.com (66.187.233.246) from 192.168.0.3
Under Timothy's logic, my version of BASH can't read it either. I'd better upgrade to Windows Explorer or something more "standard".
Timothy:
It's a server config issue. Whoever admins freedesktop.org (Redhat apparently) doesn't understand Apache config well enough to allow requests for http://freedesktop.org. Is it you by chance?
Re:browser? (Score:2)
Mozilla also has a bug (159742) where the same guessing triggers if you click "open link in new window" on a link in a web page, which might explain how the incorrect link in the submission got past the editors.
Re:browser? (Score:2)
Re:browser? (Score:2)
Re:browser? (Score:2)
Second hand crap.. (Score:5, Insightful)
He was always talking about how SUN funded all these usability studies on Gnome and basically neudered it. They basically LCD'd (lowest common denominator, not liquid crystal display) the whole environment. This is part of the reason that KDE looks like crap under RedHat -- since all the cool stuff was taken out of Gnome, and RedHat wanted Gnome and KDE to look very similar, guess what happened to all the KDE features... *poof* gone.
It really seems like KDE is doing the right thing.. and this is painful for me to say, being a big RedHat fan (while it's unrelated, I work right down the street from them), but I really feel like they're stuck in a common big-business problem of "Well, we dumped all this money into it, so we can't stop using it or we'll look really dumb."
I agree on unifying the desktop.. but man, RedHat did a job on KDE.
www? (Score:2)
Can someone explain why a browser would be so broken that it would return a page for a domain that simply doesn't exist?
artsd and esd (and oss) (Score:5, Insightful)
Multiple dsps (Score:2)
How about common SVG implementations? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about putting KDE's and Gnome's heads together to think how to create themes, icons,
We're all (both KDE and Gnome) just starting to get SVG working, get it done right now!
just one request (Score:2)
Please stop copying windows.
Just because windows does it doesn't mean it's not total garbage. Go to Nextstep, to Apple for examples. Copy from the people who know what they're doing. Take the good parts from windows and leave the crap behind.
We will all thank you so much. If we wanted windows, we'd be running it.
Re:Oh dear god. (Score:2)
"Cats and dogs, living together...MASS HYSTERIA!"
Re:Oh dear god. (Score:2)
Venkman: This city is about to face a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical?"
Ray: We mean real wrath-of-God type stuff. Plagues, darkness--
Winston: The dead rising from the grave!
Egon: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes--
Venkman: Riots in the streets, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
Re:KDE *and* Gnome co-operate? (Score:4, Informative)
in case you were serious, you should have a look
at the various mailing lists. I think that you
would find that there has always been a fair
amount of cooperation between developers of the
two projects.
Re:KDE *and* Gnome co-operate? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
You can never please everyone
Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I *must* be right.
-- Larry Wall
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
Timing is everything. Lots of ideas that we come to believe are "obviously right" are indeed highly "controversial" when they are first put forward. Obvious examples include almost everything Einstein wrote, Darwin's theory of evolution, Copernicus' theories of astronomy, Newton's laws of gravity. Indeed most major scientific advances were controversial when introduced.
So I disagree. Red Hat's decision can be both obviously right (especially in hindsight) and controversial.
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:2)
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:2)
No. "obviously right" means nothing else than "everybody agrees that this doesn't need a proof at all".
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:3, Insightful)
"I have never seen a statue of a committee."
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:5, Insightful)
*breaths in*
is nothing at all like a major scientific discovery, or theory. The look of the Linux desktop is not something we all have to agree on, nor can it be proved to be a truth of some sort.
In fact, the look of the Linux desktop holds no disadvantages for opposing camps. There are no consequences for those who do not realize "the truth," and therefore room to continue the argument into infinity. Much like those toilet-paper roll arguments and thermometer spats that can cause rifts in familes for fifty years. Since the issue is non-scientific and illogical, neither party has to come over to the other side, and pride ensures that they never will.
By the way, the paper goes over the top so it's easy to reach.
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:2)
(+1, "Obviously Right")
Re:Obviously right == controversial? (Score:2)
One could argue that it "seems to have been right thing to do" or "apparently it was right thing to do", but it's hardly fair to say "it was obviously right".
Good point... (Score:2)
Re:Get XFCE involved.... (Score:2)
Funny, the author disagrees with you:
XFce is a lightweight desktop environment for various UNIX systems.
The window manager (XFwm) is only a component of the entire package.
Matt
Re:They got the hint (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Correct Freedesktop.org link (Score:2)
Re:Bad link...thanks... (Score:2, Funny)
Syntaxe : ServerAlias hôte1 hôte2
Contexte : hôte virtuel
Statut : noyau
Compatibilité : ServerAlias est disponible à partir de la version 1.1 d'Apache
La directive ServerAlias défini un nom secondaire pour un hôte, utilisable dans le contexte d'hôte virtuels nommés.
Voir aussi : Hôtes virtuels sur Apache
I'm not surprised.
Re:Maybe they'll both read... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe they'll both read... (Score:3, Informative)
Is Aqua white pinstripe or brushed metal? (Score:2)
Re:Maybe they'll both read... (Score:2)
Re:Maybe they'll both read... (Score:2, Informative)
I'm really glad that those guidelines are actually being implemented, because that makes Gnome really easy to use (as opposed to KDE, which seems to try and imitate MS. I hate those "Yes, No, Cancel" dialogues).
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/1.0/w
KDE/Gnome have an opportunity to improve on Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Because Apple's 1 button mouse is an affront to humankind.
Seriously, Apple's interface is nice, and they will likely borrow a plethora of good ideas from Apple, but they should not adopt their standard "as is" without question. There are bozo aspects to Apple's interface, the one-button mouse being the most obvious (and before you suggest Apple doesn't need additional mouse buttons, think again. They've had to cobble on the equivelent functionality in a much less intuitive fashion
Finally, they can have my single clock middle-button paste feature I've enjoyed under X all these years when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers. Windows and Apple do not make cutting and pasting text nearly as easy as X
Focus follows mouse is another example of a feature common in X window managers, lacking in Windoze, and certainly not the default (if available at all) under Apple OS.
So, while Apple has much good to offer, they are not the be-all, end-all of GUI interfaces, anymore than Microsoft, KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, or any other particular entity is. They come to the table with a great deal of experience, and a great deal to offer, but God(tm) they are not.
Re:Now if only we could fix the X Clipboard (Score:5, Informative)
Those are two different mechanisms; Ctrl+C is "copy to clipboard", and you then paste from the clipboard, but "just highlight it" is followed by the middle-mouse-button "paste current selection".
I'd personally be a bit annoyed if Ctrl+C in a terminal window copied the selection to the clipboard rather than sending a ^C down the pseudo-terminal to interrupt the current program - but I'd be similarly annoyed if it did that in the terminal windows on a certain non-UNIX operating system [microsoft.com] as well. (In that OS, at least in the 5.0 version of the "New Technology" flavor of that OS, you can either select "Edit->Copy" on the window menu or, apparently, use the "Enter" key - I guess "Enter" acts as a CR/LF only if nothing is selected.)
Not in any desktop that implements its primary and clipboard selections according to the X clipboard explanation [freedesktop.org], which says "selecting but with no explicit copy should only set PRIMARY, never CLIPBOARD."
The problem here is that people have gotten confused about what the "clipboard" is. The clipboard is not what selecting something with the mouse changes and not what your middle mouse button pastes. Selecting with the mouse changes the primary selection, and the middle mouse button pastes the primary selection. "Copy" copies the primary selection to the clipboard; merely selecting something doesn't, it just changes the primary selection to refer to what you selected. "Paste" inserts the contents of the clipboard in place of the current selection (which could be a "zero-length" selection, in which case it amounts to inserting at the point of the selection, e.g. insert at the text cursor in a text window).
(As I remember, the KDE people spoke of them both as "clipboards" when discussing the KDE 3.0/Qt 3.0 change to make the primary selection and clipboard work that way, in order to, I guess, avoid confusing people whose brains had become too locked into the notion of the middle mouse button pasting some kind of "clipboard"; however, the X11 Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual calls the primary selection PRIMARY and the clipboard CLIPBOARD.)